1. Statement of the Technical Field
The inventive arrangements relate generally to methods and systems for device configuration and data extraction, and more particularly to portable data processing devices for interacting with a device to be configured or from which data is to be extracted.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the electronics industry, there is a growing trend toward the development of equipment that is software configurable or that collects data that may later be extracted for analysis. These kinds of systems are increasingly popular in the fields of communications, data backup, data portability, and for cloning system configurations from one piece of equipment to another. The traditional method for performing these configuration and data extraction tasks typically involves bringing the equipment to a computer so the equipment can be configured. A communication link is typically established between the computer server and the client equipment to be configured or from which data is to be extracted. The communication link can be wired or wireless. A custom software application is usually provided for the computer for the purpose of executing the required configuration or data extraction process.
Still, in many instances, it is inconvenient or otherwise impractical to transport the client equipment requiring configuration or data extraction to a location where there is a computer that has the appropriate programming for performing the configuration or data extraction task. For example, the equipment may be mounted in a vehicle or in a remote location. In such instances, the computer can be transported to the site of the equipment so that the equipment can be configured or data extracted. Still, with the increasing prevalence of reconfigurable equipment and/or data collection equipment of this type, users are seeking more convenient methods for executing these tasks. For example, many users have found that it can be convenient to perform the configuration and/or data extraction task using a personal electronic device (PED). These PED devices are gaining popularity for these tasks because of their small size, wireless interfaces, and ability to communicate via the internet.
Despite the numerous advantages associated with using PEDs for the purpose of equipment configuration and data extraction, there are some problems associated with this approach. For example, software that is written for a conventional desktop or laptop computer is not directly suitable for use on certain PEDs. For example, this can be the case when the PED is a personal digital assistant (PDA). Hardware restrictions associated with the physical size of the PDAs can make a direct porting of the software somewhat difficult. This problem is normally addressed by writing custom computer code specifically designed for the PDA. The custom code typically duplicates some of the transaction code that is already written for a larger scale computer system. However, the software code for the PDA inevitably differs somewhat because the code is usually written in such a way that the coding is dependent on the nature of the data and based on domain specific information. Accordingly, the custom software approach tends to be cumbersome and cost intensive.